The New Talk of MLB: Torpedo Bats

April 3rd, 2025 by Andrew Ciofalo

by Andrew Ciofalo ’25, host of After The Whistle

Torpedo Bats have taken the league by storm this year… but what exactly are they? Does the bat itself create more power? Should they be allowed?

To answer all these questions, you need to know what a legal bat is defined as, and what this ‘torpedo’ or bowling pin style bat changes.

The Torpedo Bat was invented by MIT Physicist Aaron Leanhardt. Leanhardt spent the last few seasons with the New York Yankees, starting as there as a Minor League hitting coach in 2018. His designs and implementations of the Torpedo Bat started in the Minor leagues in 2022. Minor League players we’re using this bat a few years prior to how we’re now seeing it used in the Majors. In 2024, Leanhardt became the Yankees first major league analyst.

The problem that Leanhardt was solving while dividing this bat was how do you make players barrel up the ball more often. Looking at Yankee players like Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm Jr., they often were missing the barrel of the bat, thus making poor contact to the ball. So how can a hitting coach change that besides telling them ‘hey! You’re missing big, swing higher on the ball!’ or something of the sorts. Maybe they tell them to change their mechanics entirely, but why do that when you have great mechanics? That might be the solution either.

The answer: move the barrel to the hotspot where these players tend to have their misses. By doing so you’re seeing these guys barrel up more balls and having much harder and improved contact. The results are pretty clear that it does work. Heck, Elly De La Cruz from the Cincinnati Reds used one for the first time and hit 2 homers with it. About 20 players around the league have used the bat thus far and I bet that number will increase over the course of the year.

So is it legal? Yes. By MLB rule this bat is legal. A legal bat cannot be more than 42 inches in length and its thickest part can be no more than 2.61 inches long. This last part is the key, the thickest part (being the barrel) is traditionally seen at the end of the bat, we see this as a normal bat. These new torpedo bats still stay within the rule of the thickest part being 2.61 inches long, just the barrel has shifted from the end of the bat to a little bit down the bat. Plus, all of these bats used in game are presented to MLB officials prior to each start, therefore these bats are no secret and are in fact legal.

The MLB will likely see the Torpedo Bat used by many more players around the league, and quickly too. Clubs analysts will be looking closely at their players and seeing if these new bats can improve their players and squad as a whole.

So what do you think about the Torpedo Bats? Do you think it’s cheating? Should they be banned? Or are we just witnessing the next great, game changing invention of baseball.